Cloud Developer, Cloud Infrastructure Specialist, Data Engineer and Cybersecurity Specialist. These are the profiles that Reti is looking for, the IT Consulting company, listed on the AIM and specialized in System Integration, B Corp and benefit companies in Busto Arsizio, which is looking for 70 people to hire, after having already entered 50 last year. Bruno Paneghini, president and CEO, explains that the winning aspect of the company’s strategy «is the talent of our professionals, whom we call NETworker, the engine of the innovative solutions we create for our customers. To continue feeding our ecosystem it is essential to put people at the center and invest in their training ». Also for this reason the company, in this restart phase, marked by the increase in investments by companies in digital transformation projects, will open its doors to 70 professionals. The coming months, more generally, seem to be marked by positive prospects for employment as well, as statistics and employers’ forecasts tell us.
The prospects
For Italy, Istat expects sustained GDP growth both in 2021 (+ 4.7%) and in 2022 (+ 4.4%) which will be accompanied by an evolution in employment. If measured in terms of Ula (work unit), it will record an increase in 2021 (+ 4.5%) and in 2022 (+ 4.1%). The trend in the unemployment rate will instead reflect the gradual normalization of the labor market with an increase in the current year (9.8%) and a slight decrease in 2022 (9.6%). But what do market players say? Confirmation of this ongoing recovery comes from data from the ManpowerGroup Employment Outlook Survey (MEOS) which involves 856 companies in Italy (45,000 globally in 43 countries). Companies are returning to positive hiring prospects in Italy for the third quarter (July, August, September) of 2021, with 15% of employers expecting an increase in hiring, 6% expecting a decrease and 75% who do not expect any changes. Net employment prospects (balance between entries and exits), net of seasonal adjustments, stand at + 7%, the fastest hiring rate in the last two years. Forecasts for new entrants therefore improve by 8 percentage points compared to the previous quarter and by 11 percentage points compared to the same quarter a year ago.
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One million and 300 thousand opportunities
The latest update of the monthly bulletin of the Excelsior Information System, produced by Unioncamere and Anpal, which shows that over 560 thousand opportunities offered by companies in June, also tell us about the restart of the demand for work. The figure rises to almost 1.3 million with the entire June-August quarter as the horizon. Although with heterogeneous dynamics at sectoral and territorial level, this month the search for personnel should exceed even that recorded in June 2019, in the pre-Covid era. Manufacturing with food, engineering and electronics and services with tourism and commerce and then construction are the leading sectors. In particular, the industry plans 163,000 entries in June (36,000 more hires than last month) and 378,000 in the quarter. About 397 thousand are the employment contracts that will be offered by the service sector in the current month (+ 134 thousand hires) and over 900 thousand those planned for the quarter. In 56% of cases these will be fixed-term contracts, in 19% permanent contracts, in 10% in administration and in 5% in apprenticeships. The share of companies planning hires also increased from 12% in May to 15% in June. Is there therefore a recovery in the labor market? The question seems to have an affirmative answer, according to what emerges by crossing different statistical data. Stefano Scabbio, president of Southern Europe of ManpowerGroup also confirms this: «A year and a half after the start of the pandemic, with the advancement of the vaccination campaign and the decline in infections, a recovery in the market is emerging. In many sectors, including production / manufacturing, construction and services, there is a positive trend in employers’ intentions of hiring, which reaches 7% nationally. A recovery that will in any case focus on the person and the creation of a new future for the industry through the acceleration of digital transformation processes and sustainable development ».
He Talent shortage
Scabbio observes that, however, companies must face an increasingly strong talent shortage: “In a world in which the business models of companies are transforming rapidly and which has experienced increasingly high unemployment rates due to the pandemic, it is stated Talent Shortage is becoming increasingly strong, a phenomenon that once again confirms the difficulty of employers in finding people with the right skills. In Italy this year it reached 85%, the highest figure ever, among the largest in the world and almost doubled in the last 3 years. The sectors of logistics, production, IT and sales are among the sectors in which the most difficult professional categories to attract are found. And it is precisely in this scenario that we must start again from technological innovation and qualification of human capital, two fundamental dimensions for bridging that gap of unemployed jobs due to lack of skills ». However, hiring forecasts have to deal with an ever-growing shortage of talent that has reached its peak for 15 years: hard and soft skills are increasingly difficult to find. In Italy, Manpower records the percentage of 85%, the highest figure for over a decade and almost doubled in the last 3 years. A global survey involving 42,000 companies says that almost 7 out of 10 employers (69%) report difficulties in hiring new staff: this is the highest figure ever achieved since 2006. This is true for Italy. where the percentage reaches 85%, but also for France (88%), Romania (86%), Switzerland (83%), Belgium (83%) and Turkey (83%). The lowest rates are recorded in China (28%), the United States (32%), India (43%) and South Africa (46%). Globally, the talent shortage is greatest in larger companies.
The leap of the term employed
In particular, fixed-term and temporary contracts are driving the recovery in the labor market, a sign of the great caution of businesses and the difficulty in making long-term forecasts. According to what the latest Istat note explained, in April the growth in employment already recorded in the previous two months continued, with an increase of over 120 thousand employed compared to January 2021. The increase involved both men and women, but, explains Istat, he concentrated on temporary employees. In April 2021 compared to March we have an increase of 96 thousand temporary employees and a decrease of 47 thousand permanent employees. If we go back to 2020, we instead have an increase of 229 thousand temporary employees and a decrease of 222 thousand permanent employees. Compared to February 2020, the month prior to the start of the pandemic, the employed are instead over 800 thousand fewer and the employment rate is lower by almost 2 percentage points.